Fostering hares

Important!

Female hares usually bear their young ones in troughs so one may find a seemingly helpless
young hare. Leave it there! Young hares only get nursed once every day.

If you or your dog touched the hare, the mother will reject it because young hares usually have
no own body odour which prevents them from being found by enemies. In that case, you should take
care of the little one. If you are not sure whether to take the baby hare with you or not, observe
if the mother still provides it with food.

Hares as well as rabbits have a very touchy digestion and tend to get diarrhoea very fast. They
can die of dehydration within a day, which makes it even more important to feed them right.
If the hare has diarrhoea take it to the vet immediately.

On the internet you will very often hit upon the information, that a hare will die if it's
treated with medicines for pets. This derives from the fact that there is no sufficient
experience in the medical treatment of hares. Medicines which work properly on rabbits may
cause severe damage or the death of a hare. You will find a list of field-tested medicines
in the corresponding section of this homepage.